Nickel Year

More nickel was consumed in 1935 than in any other year in history, Robert Crooks Stanley, head of International Nickel Co., announced last week. World consumption for the first ten months came to 133,300,000 lb., compared to 112,481,000 in the corresponding 1929 period.

Producing about 90% of the world's nickel supply at Sudbury, Ontario, International Nickel has almost a monopoly in its chosen field. There is plenty of nickel in the earth's surface, but it is only in the Sudbury ore that ample supplies of pure nickel can be cheaply extracted from the other elements found in company with it. Even at Sudbury, "cheap" is a relative term, for nickel sells at about 35-c- per lb., compared with aluminum at 20-c-, copper at 9-c-, steel at 2-c-. Other useful ingredients in Sudbury ore are copper, platinum, gold and silver. Roughly speaking, a ton of Sudbury ore yields 95 lb. of copper, 47 lb. of nickel, and fractional ounces of precious metals. On a dollar basis, International gets out of a ton of ore about $16.50 worth of nickel, $8.55 of copper, $4 of precious metals.

Basis for Nickel's success--and also the reason why it is the international nickel company--is the chemical process for separating the copper from the nickel. Two small U. S. companies had the process, but very little nickel; Canada had plenty of nickel but no process. In 1902 Charles Schwab, now Bethlehem Steel's board chairman, helped to promote a merger of the U. S. and Canadian companies. In 1929 the major competitive mine in the Sudbury area was absorbed, and International Nickel reached its present form.

Nickel's use in battleship steel and in artillery has given the metal a military overtone much deplored by its sponsors. The British battleships Nelson and Rodney each have about 500,000 lb. of nickel in their 34,000 tons of steel. The French light field pieces, the famed 75's, each contained about 50 lb. of nickel. But there is no nickel in rifles, sabers, bayonets, bombs, shells or shrapnel. In 1934 Nickel's officers estimated that not more than 5% of nickel produced was used for military purposes, whereas 20% was going into automobiles. But in any wartime period Nickel's business would obviously take on a more martial air and last week Mr. Stanley conceded that some of 1935'' record-breaking consumption was caused by "certain world powers" building up their nickel reserves.

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